A Tanka

The morning turns its
Golden face upon us all
The One – human race,
Settled here in warmth and light
Under perpetual care.

Tanka is a fun and simple form, a five-line syllabic with counts: 5 – 7 – 5 – 7 – 7. I enjoy them a great deal and suggest if you have not, that you try your hand at creation, Traditionally, they are about nature, but I am not married to that aspect. I often string them together as stanzas in longer poems.

© Jo Ann J. A. Jordan

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2020.07.01 Sinbad resized

America, oh America

Step lively all you
Support our brave America
Come forward and stand
For love of every people
Let not your heart turn aside.
Trouble is brewing
Strife is almost everywhere
Something we must do
However, you are leaning
To your convictions, be true.
Vote! Let us not fail,
For the love of our country,
Make sure your ballot
Is cast surely as best you
See fit, further freedom’s ring.

Will you, dear reader, do
What you should needfully do?

Remember, Do You?

Do you recall the first time
You realized all the world
Depended on no single thing,
But other hearts needed you
Enough to boost hope and reason
For continuing beyond those
Times love given seemed less
Than what might be wanted?
Remember pulling a smile
From the aether and laughing
Because crying was much too cruel?
When you won your big thing,
Do you remember thinking
Of all the small stuff sacrificed,
And wishing with a lurch,
You had those along with the glory?
Remember the kiss you thought
Meant the world and forever
And somehow all your dreams
Faded like the rosy pink in
A Summer’s sky at the end
Of an utterly magical day?
Do you recall how everything
Seemed so hard and you thought
Of giving up, but someone had
Faith to tell you how you could do
More than you thought possible,
That you were capable beyond
Your belief and you pulled yourself
Up together and conquered defeat
Sallying on to succeed tremendously?
Remember the darkness cannot
Overcome the vision of light
Captured in a moment
Needed to set the flame in
Motion to take back now
And claim the past and forever.
Remember, remember, do YOU?
Do you recall that no matter,
This is your life, and you are able,
Able to survive because you are
Here now and have come so far,
In the present, you can go further,
You can take possession of success.
Despite negatives facing you
Your life is precious and may thrive?

Memory is a poignant tool at times. If you need inspiration, drop a line in your past and see what you pull up. Maybe you could use the above questions and statements to set you on your way. Life is abundant beyond our cognizance, and there are so many dreams we have accomplished.

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Prescription

A simple prescription for defeating a creative block is to face whatever media we work with and simply make a start. Writing is my fondest medium, so I began with A. I do not typically encounter the condition of block, nor the related issue of boredom. Still, I recognize both can be problems for some.

Reading can be a preventative measure against boredom and can dispel block when inspirational material is read. I do not rule out any content that one fancies. We find our inspirations in what we love.

Sometimes creative work with materials used in childhood or similar to those can be the catalyst for a product that is hugely satisfying. I think this is one of the reasons journals are so appealing to me. Writing by hand was how my early stories and poems were done.

Construction paper, pipe cleaners, and glue can be used to make more sophisticated work now that we are grown up, but those materials bring our child out to play. Often when I create art, I go back to early beginnings and use colored pencils. The smell of shavings is very evocative of efforts made before the critic became hyperactive.

If your early days included film, simply remember the feeling of beginner’s mind and get out and take the shot. The idea here is to leave the agonizing behind and simply fall in love with capturing the subject, any subject, now.

A cause of boredom and block is our tendency to overthink. If we become engrossed in the doing, the being, we can escape the critical tendency to be overtly adult.

Some people say think outside the box; my thought is to consider the box lost in another dimension and explore that territory. No answer you discover can possibly be wrong.

Okay, sorry, this was free-form, and as with much free-writing should you disagree, just take what you can use and disregard all else.

I have not written explicitly about creativity in a while, and this is Haphazard Creative. I hope you are graced by intense creativity in whatever you choose to do.

Confession

A lot of things that are happening in the world at present are hard for me to parse. Things seem to have gone quite mad, and I am often afraid. I do not feel much belonging in reality because it has become ferocious. I worry.

If, by your constitution, you sometimes tend to live your life as a character in your own story, things can become a bit bizarre. Since poetry is one of my significant forms of communication, there is some validity to a concept recently divulged by someone dear on the nature of my existence. He calls me an Agent of Spiralling Chaos and has had things to get in order, so I have been in exile.

Though he is a recent, but not so recent addition to my life, I do not react to exile well and have been fighting the negative states, as you may have noticed.

He allowed me access to his realm for a few hours, which resulted in my missing my deadline for posting a significant piece last evening. So pictorial documentation came into play.

We had been shopping because I needed to go, but I am now quite terrified to go alone. The truth is dealing with reality has become increasingly difficult. I now have a supply of Diet Coke and Gatorade Zero, which should help me survive until next, I see him.

A funny thing recently is I have noticed the poetry seems to slip into my natural conversation, especially in the form of rhymes. It is not that surprising because of how much poetry I have written this year, but it is still interesting to me. Rhymes were never that much a part of my forms. It has become apparent as I worked this year that poems with rhyme are more likely to garner likes.

To be honest, I am bewildered about what I should do to entertain my audience. You guys are hard to figure out, and with a significant portion of my interaction with the world being through a screen, it would be so edifying if I understood how to please you over there on your side. Since I do not have a crystal ball or a fortune teller to inform me, there are times, I hate to say, but I just do it because I promised myself that I would make at least one post a day this year, 2020. When I made that vow, I had no idea what we, as a planet, would be getting into.

I do not watch TV, and though I have some subscriptions, I rarely read articles beyond headlines. Sometimes my Facebook feed is overrun with politics, but I am an expert on the scroll. When I come here with him, I get caught up on things out there. It hurts my heart and scares my mind. It is not unusual for me to cry. I never thought the world could become what it is at present.

I cannot understand the present. I only hope that we all reach a point where love is the overriding and guiding force leading all our dealings, interactions, and relationships.

I hope the Wookie has not destroyed things again. I think I minimized her range, but she is an unpredictable article. I did put all the shoes away, the Amope, and my foot care stuff. I am so fortunate I had a spare Amope. Mom blessed me with that, as so much. All the doors are shut, so it should be interesting. I really did not expect her to act so puppyishly; if the shelter was correct, she should be over three by now. She has always been rather destructive, though it was most commonly to me as a person.

I should be sleeping, but it seems when I do not have time for my personal pursuits because I am otherwise entertained (did my stalwart fans catch the reference?), I will catch up in the after-midnight hours. Those you may surmise are a comfort zone anyway.

Agent of Spiralling Chaos, complete distraction, I guess it fits, though it is nothing I attempt to be. I think we are mutual Agents of Survival. Time will tell, and we shall see.